The Olympic gold medallist Sofia Bekatorou, credited with launching a belated #MeToo awakening in Greece testified in a sex abuse trial that has encouraged other women to break decades of silence.
“I hope… that other women and people who have experienced sex abuse will come forward, so that our society will be more healthy, and we’ll no longer be afraid,” two-time Olympic medalist Sofia Bekatorou told reporters outside the prosecutor’s office. The 43-year-old mother of two said she was 21 when she was subjected to “sexual harassment and abuse” by a senior federation member in his hotel room in 1998, shortly after trials for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Mrs Bekatorou spoke first in a video interview to Marie Claire journalist and digital director of marieclaire.gr Evita Tsilochristou in December before repeating the claim in a state-sponsored teleconference in January. She had already testify to the district attorney in November 2020.
“Years later, having two children and thinking that other children would be in my place, I found the courage to speak up,” she told the conference, adding that she had also resisted telling her parents out of concern that they would prevent her from continuing sailing.
The sailing federation, which initially called on Bekatorou to supply more details of her allegations before taking action, said in a statement over the weekend that it had “immediately requested the resignation” of its vice-president Aristeidis Adamopoulos.
Several other female athletes have stepped forward since Bekatorou’s revelation, while nearly a dozen other women have alleged sexual harassment by professors at Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University, one of the country’s top higher learning institutions.
In a rare display of unity, the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, voiced support for victims whose determination to speak out has elicited echoes of the #MeToo movement.
Read below some points of Sofia Bekatorou’s Interview at Marie Claire Greece
About the sexual harassment..
“Something I experienced in the Greek sports field, which I would like to touch on and should not exist, is the way some people in it behave. People who have a position of power and come in constant contact with children. Unfortunately, I was sexually harassed and abused by such an individual when I was 21 years old.”
You tried to avoid him, but he didn’t listen..
“I did say No, which he did not respect and on my part there was no outburst, so that I could make my own revolution at the given time. Now, years later, having two children and thinking that some other children may be in my place, I got courageous enough to talk about it, because I think that such people should be removed from the sports field. These people 100% abuse their power and make sports dangerous. And since they themselves are the dangerous ones, and not sports, they must be removed from the field.”
It was a person close to you?
He didn’t exist in my everyday life but he has had power -and still has- and that’s why he could be present in our team missions and be in touch with athletes. Any time you were in the need of something you were supposed to associate with him. He was supportive and while we had conflicts with all the others officials, anyone who would act differently (like him) made us think ha he believed in us and he was there to support us. In fact, that support and help, the fact that someone could hear us I mean, was deceitful. I think of that now and makes me feel seek, I can’t even bring it in my mind how someone with a father figure… He was a father figure to me due to his age and his title and he took advantage of that with that way and he wasn’t even sorry, he had no dignity to resign or to stay away of the field. In contrary he continued his “work” although we can’t call like that what he was doing. I’m not alone in that and I’m sure there are other victims too. The fact that we always depend on the state and on the officials brings us to a weak position. We think all our world is gonna be collapsed if we speak out what about what we believe and think is fair, because that is is what really happens. Athletes don’t have the voice they should, in fact their voice isn’t heard and they find ways to minimize it and erase it eventually. Now that I have grown up, feeling that they can’t define me or my goals, If I’m going or not in a race because it felt like I was in a war to me, I don’t care anymore. My interest is to help parents regain trust in sports and in everyone that represent sailing because kids can grow up really beautifully in that field, they are being educated, empowered and become independent and there is no any relation to that sick thing sometimes exists.
Could you please describe what happened that day and how it went on after that? Were there any further consequences afterwards? Perhaps he tried to reapproach you…
We were on an international trip when that happened, it never occurred to me that the way he approached me could lead to something like this. I trusted him all the way, I was not afraid to stay alone with him, I was not thinking to refuse letting him to accompany me to the hotel where we stayed all together. I was not suspicious at all. Therefore, I had no defenses. He used his humor. In the beggining you say to yourself, “maybe it’s not what I actually think it is”. But when he began to exceed my limits and asked him to stop, he basically made me doubt about his actions, by telling me: “But it’s nothing, nothing is happening, it doesn’t mean anything”. It was a very weird feeling. I tried to push him away with my behavior, because in my mind there were only two ways to defend myself… The first one was to push him away so as to make him understand that I didn’t consent. It didn’t work. The other one that I had in my mind was to fight, and this would be the only way to defend myself. It was something that scared me, because he was someone that I would meet all the time, since I had set some goals that got me into a very difficult situation, almost suffocating, and as a result of that I rejected this particular option. Since the first one did not work out, sadly the “inevitable” happened, and I didn’t share it with my fellow athletes not only because I felt ashamed, but also because I got mad at myself: I thought I was a strong girl and when I had to react in every way I could, I chose the worst option. Nevertheless, I shared it with my boyfriend at that time, also an athlete, and discussed how we could deal with it. We realized that we would have to encounter that man over and over again due to his title as a senior federation official and we thought that no one was going to believe me, on the contrary, everyone would take his side. So, after I met him for one last time, because he asked for it and I told him “I could have been your daughter and how could you do that to me?” I also told him “Don’t you dare come near me, ever again in your life, because then I will not keep this secret from anyone”. Of course it was not possible for him not to come near, because we shared the same “workplace”.
All these years we constantly bump into each other and we have to share the same environment. Many times I have felt that some people knew because I have seen their look and how they smirk at each other, which is even worse, as he has obviously been bragging about this. Obviously he has told everyone his version of the story and since I did not react, there was only one truth for them to know. With this decision of mine to speak out for the first time in public, I just want to make this go away. People like him with such sick minds , shouldn’t be anywhere around children or teenage girls. No girl who has experienced -in any way- sexual harassment, sexual abuse, psychological violence should not live in silence. This has to stop. Because all women, we have a voice, we have rights. No one should either take advantage of us or of their authority. We should not feel guilty, neither when we say no, nor when we exist in a male-dominated space. We must be able to function without stress, just by being ourselves, with our characteristics which make us stand out from the crowd and do whatever we are bound for. Sailing is a male-dominated space and there is racism to say the least, but this needs to change, little by little, step by step. We need to make all these people who ignore boundaries, to see them and comply and then create healthier interactions with others. I think that the new generation hopes to achieve that, so that’s why we decided to speak out.
You did not report it immediately, and this is common with many victims, because they feel guilty and shame. Do you think there is social stigma? Why don’t women speak out as soon as something like this happens?
“I think they are stigmatized and unfortunately I think it happens because stereotypes exist, such as “why did you laugh”, “why were you so friendly”, “why did you walk outside alone and did not think about it beforehand”… But why should we think about things like these? We would never advise a boy the ame way. He wouldn’t even consider thinking about those things. The reason why I didn’t speak out sooner is that I felt trapped in my role as an athlete. I felt that my goals wouldn’t become reality if I spoke the truth, because that man had way more allies than he should. This, in fact, can be proven, since my understanding is that the agents knew about this and did nothing. And I can’t help but wonder how can they let things like these happen. If I was a person of power in a sport and knew that another person of power had done something like this, he would have received the greatest reprimand. I would immediately remove him from the environment and make sure he never came back. I can not understand the way all these corrupt people have managed to survive in the system.”
Did you feel relieved when you spoke about it to the prosecutor?
“When I was in the prosecutor’s office, it was a very important moment for me, because I confessed everything to someone who looked shocked and could not believe what had happened. I felt happy because, even though it’s been years, I somehow managed to process it and talk about it. It’s never too late and as I said, I would like to do something about it and that is why I talk about it now.”
